Low-Fat Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Most of my recent food endeavors have been making baby food. I introduced foods to Juliet in the jars, then went straight to making all my own baby food. I do this for several reasons: I know exactly what is in the food, it costs A LOT less, and well frankly, I like to cook. I mentioned before that living at my parents has kind of thrown me for loop recipe wise(We THINK we get to move to our own place soon, cross your fingers!), but I still make baby food on a regular basis, the kid has got to eat. Since baby food has been on the brain, I decided to use it in a grown-up recipe, a dessert at that. It might sound a little bit crazy, but it's good, I swear.
Vegetable puree can be used in place of oil/butter, so that is the direction I took. There is still a little bit of butter for a better consistency.  Sweet Potatoes were the baby food of the moment, so that is what I used. Feel free to substitute a different starchy vegetable, but do so at your own risk.

Ingredients:
3/4 sweet potato puree (mine was really smooth, it was meant to be fed to a baby after all)
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 half bag of these:

I admit, I think I used a little bit more than half a bag, and there are probably other mint-chips out there that you could use instead, this is just what I had on hand.



First off, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. I think that is the first time I remembered to tell you guys to preheat. I feel accomplished.

Cream together the sweet potatoes, butter, sugars, and eggs until smooth. Remember, there are sweet potatoes in this, it isn't going to be the same consistency as regular cookies. Add the flour, cocoa, salt, soda, and vanilla and mix until well combined. The dough is probably going to be thick and sticky. Fold in the peppermint chips until they spread evenly. I had help from Daniel, like I said, the dough is thick and sticky, it's hard to get those things in there.

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls (or use one of those handy scooper things, I like I did) of the dough onto greased cookie sheets. Bake in your already heated oven for 10 min. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and onto a cooling rack soon after taking them out of the oven. Once they are cool, store them in an airtight container, since they tend to dry out quickly.

Daniel, and my brothers, could not tell there was baby food in the cookies. In fact, when my brother Shawn found out, I think he felt a little betrayed. Why would someone put baby food in a cookie!? However, these are not your typical cookie. They don't really go flat when they bake, and the while the outside has a little crunch, the inside has a more cake-like quality. My cookies were fairly small, but this recipe produced 95 of them! Pretty awesome. 

During a time of year where fattening treats run rampant, this is a good alternative that still has that festive flare.

No pictures, my camera is being stupid, I'll get better at taking food pictures..someday. Also, I'm still willing to take food challenges, just in case you were wondering.